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I'm an engineer, therefore my knowledge of graphic design are very, very, very poor... so please bear with me.

I want to know how much space I should leave between two paragraphs for my thesis. I've heard from some friends of mine (who are designers) that you shouldn't if you are using indentation (that seems to be length=1em, according to Tschichold's Rules).

However, is it recommendable to use both indentation and paragraph space? (we call it \parskip in LaTeX). If not, which one should have preference? What should be the length?

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    did you ask what your advisor prefers?
    – Lauren-Clear-Monica-Ipsum
    Oct 7, 2013 at 15:15
  • @LaurenIpsum Yes, he told me to create my University's template
    – Mario S. E.
    Oct 7, 2013 at 15:19

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A DA01 posts, there is no "standard". It really comes down to what visually separates the paragraphs enough to allow easy flow without creating a "hiccup" in the motion of reading. You do not want the reader to have to stop, find the next paragraph, and continue reading. Even if that takes a millisecond, it can get distracting and unconsciously make the reading more difficult. In addition, leading and age of the reader play huge roles. Often leading is far more important than any space after a paragraph.

When I design a text-heavy piece I use a minimum of 6 points between paragraphs, usually set with a space after rule. However, as text size increases, that space after should increase (as should leading).

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  • What is leading?
    – Mario S. E.
    Oct 11, 2013 at 13:31
  • Leading is the space between lines of text in a paragraph. In web design it would be line-height in CSS.
    – Scott
    Oct 11, 2013 at 13:33
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is it recommendable to use both indentation and paragraph space

It's redundant. So most graphic designers would say it's not recommended--pretty much because there's no need.

As for how much space to put between the paragraphs, there is no right answer to this other than put enough space but not too much.

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  • For paragraphs of Times New Roman 11pt, how much space would you recommend?
    – Mario S. E.
    Oct 7, 2013 at 16:44
  • @MarioS.E. again, there is no 'right' answer here. It's going to be 'whatever looks right' based on the typeface, the type size, the font weight, the leading, the column widths, the page layout, etc, etc.
    – DA01
    Oct 7, 2013 at 17:07
  • How to space paragraphs for emotional text?
    – Ooker
    Dec 13, 2017 at 9:22

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